Weapons, Culture, and Self-Interest
Subtitle: Soviet Defense Managers in the New Russia
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: February 9, 1998
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 202
ISBN-13: 9780231110792
Subjects: Armaments industries; International relations; Political science & theory; Revolutions & coups; Warfare & Defence; Political Science; Politics / Current Events; Politics/International Relations; Former Soviet Union, USSR (Europe); Russia; International Relations - Arms Control; Political Freedom & Security - International Secur; Sociology - Social Theory; Political Science / Political Freedom & Security / General; General; Labor & Industrial Relations - General; Attitudes; Case studies; Crisis management; Defense industries; Executives; Management; Russia (Federation)
Description: How do powerful people react to revolutionary circumstances? How quickly and effectively do elites adapt to, and shape, the structures of new social and political systems? Zisk offers a detailed examination of the unexpected ways Russian defense industrialists have acted in the new market economy.

Bridging the gap between political economy and international security studies, Zisk plunges into the debate of whether rational self-interest or broader cultural norms explain behavior best, focusing on three institutions that structured the Russian defense managers' working life in the 1992-95 transition era: the large defense enterprises dating from Soviet times, the webs of political authority spanning both local and national levels, and the newly emerged, market-oriented spin-off firms.